by David Nees ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 24, 2017
A thrilling start to a new series starring a complex assassin.
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When his pregnant wife is killed in the couple’s mob-torched Brooklyn business, an Iraq War veteran sets out on a mission for payback.
Nees’ (After the Fall, 2016) latest novel serves as the origin story of Dan Stone, former military sniper and current assassin. Six months after Dan and his wife, Rita, opened a neighborhood restaurant, made man Joey Batone shows up offering “protection” for a fee. After Dan turns him down, he and Joey punch it out, and the mobster gets whooped. In retaliation, Joey sends a flash-bang grenade into Dan and Rita’s restaurant, burning it to the ground. Working late, Rita and her unborn child become collateral damage. After the funeral, Dan disappears out West for several months to sharpen his sniper skills, purchase fake IDs and weapons, and master the art of disguise. When he secretly returns to New York, he interferes with Mafia shakedowns and kills some mobsters close to Joey but not the murderer himself. Dan wants Joey to sweat, and the sweat indeed pours out of him. He knows Dan is out to kill him and that the mob is turning on him too because he’s causing it problems. The Mafia wants Dan found, as do the cops, the FBI, and CIA operative Jane Tanner. Her task is to groom terrorist assassins to work for the agency. She needs to find killers who are “not so amoral that they would turn on her or the agency when a better offer” comes along. Jane calculates Dan is an ideal candidate, but locating and wooing him before anyone else gets to him is a challenge. Jane is one of several strong, smart women in this well-executed thriller. When an FBI agent suggests to her that not two people, but only one—Rita—died in the restaurant fire, Jane counters, “She was pregnant. We women think about that.” The dialogue is convincing and tailored to the characters. In addition, the storyline is intricate without seeming over-the-top. Dan’s a multifaceted antihero amid a group of intriguing characters on both sides of the law, with some walking the fine line between the two.
A thrilling start to a new series starring a complex assassin.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-975893-29-3
Page Count: 378
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by David Nees
by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 23, 2017
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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by Catherine Coulter ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 30, 2019
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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